VIDEO: Savannah's mild winter brings early berries

Thursday

Mar 1, 2012 at 6:51 PM

Mary Landers

It's been a mild winter.

The azaleas know it, having bloomed before the calendar flipped to March. So do farmer Relinda Walker's asparagus plants.

"I went down ... to see if I needed to weed the asparagus bed before they came up," said Walker, who farms organically in Screven County. "I saw spears up all over the place. They'd obviously been there a few days. Normally the first asparagus is the first of April."

She wasn't exactly surprised.

"We had spring all winter except for two episodes of 19 degrees," said Walker, who sells her produce weekly at the Forsyth Farmer's Market. "The whole thing's kinda nuts."

It won't be the warmest winter on record in Savannah. Using data that stretches back to 1874, the National Weather Service in Charleston reports that December was the 26th warmest, January was the 30th warmest and February was the 32nd warmest of their respective months. Last week, Savannah broke high temperature records with a reading of 84 on Feb. 23 and 86 on Feb. 24. The previous highs were two and three degrees cooler respectively, said meteorologist Brett Cimbora.

The warmth is bringing an early start to strawberry season at both the Bamboo Farm and Ottawa Farms in Bloomingdale. Both begin pick-your-own season this weekend.

"We're running about three weeks ahead with this warm weather," said Pete Waller, who owns and operates Ottawa Farms and is president of the Georgia Strawberry Growers Association.

The Bamboo Farm is kicking off a new event Saturday, a strawberry-pancake breakfast. Guests can pick their own strawberries after breakfast until noon.

"They are definitely early," said Jim Fountain, interim superintendent at the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens at the Historic Bamboo Farm. "The warm weather has everything and everybody confused. But we have plenty of strawberries."